


Uniform of a Winchester

by monsterfuckerdean (MushroomDoggo)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst and Feels, Bad Parent John Winchester, Bisexual Dean Winchester, Brother Feels, Canon Compliant, Character Study, Dean Winchester is Loved, Diners, Episode: s05e03 Free to Be You and Me, Family, Friendship, Gen, HBO SPN, M/M, Missing Scene, Pre-Season/Series 01, Queer Themes, Samulet (Supernatural), Sibling Love, Young Dean Winchester, Young Sam Winchester
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-24
Updated: 2020-08-24
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:01:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 20,591
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26078395
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MushroomDoggo/pseuds/monsterfuckerdean
Summary: We all know the story of the amulet Dean wears around his neck. But what about everything else he wears?
Relationships: Castiel & Dean Winchester, Dean Winchester & Sam Winchester, Lee Webb/Dean Winchester, Missouri Moseley & Dean Winchester
Comments: 23
Kudos: 118
Collections: HBO Supernatural





	1. The Skull Bracelet he wears on his right hand

"You have a mind too big for your head, don't you?"

Dean jolted back to reality with a little sound of surprise. Even as soothing Missouri's voice was, it was an unwelcome intrusion in Dean's swirling tornado of thoughts.

She stood at the door, leaned against the frame very casually. Her eyes were somehow both intense and soft at once… their shapes warm and gentle, but the gaze cut deep.

Dean cleared his throat. "Hi, Miss Missouri."

She smiled. "Can I sit with you a spell, Dean?"

He paused, looking out at the street beyond Missouri's porch.

It was a perfect summer day. The air was warmer than a dog's breath and twice as thick. The distant hum of cicadas and the occasional birdsong punctuated the stillness with a kind of natural melody.

"Yeah, sure," Dean agreed. He shrugged his shoulders in an effort to appear careless, though Missouri saw him too deeply to fall for such a ploy.

Missouri nodded. "Thank you kindly."

She eased herself down into a rocking chair near Dean with a long and contented sigh. The chair echoed her sound.

Dean watched her warily. She was an adult, and adults always made him a little nervous. But especially this adult… Dean knew perfectly well what she was capable of. He didn’t like his mind to be exposed like that.

He unconsciously rearranged himself, pressing his bony knees together, straightening his back, and placing his glass of iced tea in the middle of his lap, with both of his hands wrapped around it. He made an effort to clear his mind.

A few kids rode their bikes down the street. They looked nearly Dean’s age-- a boisterous lot, on their way to do something ill-advised and probably very stupid. The bikes clicked along like wind-up toys.

_tikita-tikita-tikita-tikita-tikita-tikita--_

"You're nursin' that tea like a whiskey," Missouri said. "Like your father."

Dean removed one hand from the drink and wiped the latent condensation off on his shorts. He kept his eyes trained ahead of him.

Felt good.

Felt bad.

His mind was full again.

Missouri huffed lightly through her nose. "How old are you, Dean? Eleven?"

"Mm…” Dean hesitated, not wanting to spurn the conversation along. “Twelve."

"Twelve," Missouri repeated, rolling the sound over her tongue. "That's a good age. Have a lot coming for you, Dean."

Dean smacked a mosquito against his knee. He drew his hand back and studied the bloody smear for a second, then similarly wiped it on his shorts. "I guess."

"Mm-hm." Missouri rocked her chair slowly and steadily back and forth.

Her porch was wood, and Dean ran his bare feet lightly along the slats. They were hot from the sun. For a moment, he could imagine himself sitting like this on his grandma's porch, or maybe his best friend's… but the scene flickered and snuffed itself out like a waning candle.

He took a sip of his iced tea. The sweetness shocked his mouth and coated his tongue and throat.

"Your mind isn't twelve, Dean," Missouri said. She was still rocking in that chair, her eyes closed, her face expressionless. "No… your mind, your concerns and your values… well, they're for a man near twice your age. Maybe even close to your daddy's age."

That felt good. 

Dean was like his dad. That was what he wanted. That was good.

"Don't go thinking it's all peaches and cream," Missouri said.

Dean looked over at her. She was sneaking a look at him with one eye open.

She smiled knowingly. "You ever try to pick up somethin' too heavy? Hurt your arms or your back?"

"Uh…" Dean drew his sweaty upper lip across his t-shirt sleeve. "Yeah, I guess. I dunno."

"Ever hear your daddy complain about throwin' his back out?" Missouri asked coyly.

At long last, Dean chuckled. "Yeah. Lotsa times"

"Well, see, that's what your brain is doin'," Missouri said. She pointed to Dean's head, as if accusing this part of him all on its own. "It's liftin' things that are too heavy, and it's makin' you feel so much older than you are."

"But I don't--" Dean paused, and shifted in his seat. "I don't feel old. Not that old, anyway."

Missouri laughed. "Not as old as your dad?"

Dean looked at her, then shook his head. "N-no…"

"But you're trying to be, aren't you?"

Dean was quiet.

A cloud drifted lazily in front of the sun, providing momentary relief from its heat. But, then, it wasn't really relief… was it? Just a reminder of the cooler days from spring, and the type of sun which wouldn't burn. 

Enjoy it while it lasts, kiddo. Maybe catch a breeze.

The cloud passed, and the sun returned to its full intensity. 

Dean withdrew his feet, tucking them one behind the other to prevent them from being cooked right there on the deck.

"It's not all bad," Missouri said. "I can be damn sure your brother's thankful for you, and not just 'cause I can read him like a book."

Dean smiled to himself. A tiny whisper of a breeze ruffled his hair. He kicked his feet out and swung them back and forth.

"But I get the feeling you don't quite know what to do with yourself sometimes." Missouri stopped rocking, and leaned forward. 

She rested her elbows on her knees. The way she looked down at the porch, hunched over and serious, the golden sun steaming over her form and causing it to glow a rich orange… she made Dean think of a painting. The sort of painting that was all blobby and colorful, just the idea of a scene rather than the scene itself.

Dean mirrored her pose. Not on purpose, of course, but he did it nonetheless. Leaned forward at the waist, his feet set wide, elbows on his knees. The ice in his glass clinked as he readjusted.

Missouri looked over at Dean, and a little smirk graced her lips. "Too old to be a kid, too young to be a man." Her expression changed to one of deep sympathy. "You're stuck, aren't you? And you're starting to really feel it for the first time."

Dean was very still.

His eyes were sort of glazed over and distant, his brows knit together ever so slightly. He was chewing the inside of his cheek, and it made this little shadow of a crater on his skin. 

Another cloud passed in front of the sun.

Dean's expression changed very suddenly. He leaned back into his seat and laughed. The laugh of a boy. "I dunno what you're talking about. I'm fine!"

Missouri narrowed her eyes. "Dean--"

"Look," Dean said coolly. He set his glass of tea down on the table beside him and folded his hands behind his head. "I know I do stuff a lot of kids my age don't, but that's just 'cause I'm a hunter, not 'cause I'm some headcase."

"Never said you were a headcase," Missouri drawled.

Dean's look of casual amusement was failing him, but he wouldn't let it. "Sounds like you're saying I need help or something. I don't need help."

"I'm sure you feel very capable."

"I _am_ capable."

"Of course, of course," Missouri said quickly. "What I meant was… well, you're right. You're handling a lot more than most boys your age, and you're doin' it with grace. But everyone has their limits, Dean. Even Winchesters."

Dean looked away.

Missouri watched him closely. Watched the way his fingers picked at the fraying edge of his shorts. Watched the way his eyes stared down at the deck, empty but for the thoughts behind them.

The boy's head was a swirling mass of inconsistencies. Half of it was pink and bright and childlike, and the other half was red and dark and it dragged him down. He was his own best friend, his own worst enemy. It was right on the edge of being too much for him. Of spilling out of that space inside him and onto the deck in a great mess of red and pink.

But, as Missouri peered into his mind, she saw that thread that he picked at. A little piece of something else entirely-- a flicker of striking violet that whipped through the hurricane every now and then. 

Dean tugged at the thread on his shorts.

The little violet thread in his thoughts poked out again.

Tug, tug.

Another flash.

“Your daddy ever tell you about my powers?” Missouri asked.

Dean shrugged. “Sure. How you can read minds, right?”

Missouri nodded. “That’s right.”

“Sounds cool.”

Missouri laughed, sharp and loud. “I won’t lie to you, Dean. It is.”

Dean smirked.

“But it’s hard in its own way,” Missouri continued, still jovial and smiling. “Like learnin’ any skill, it took me a lot of time to get control of it. I don’t wanna hear everybody’s thoughts all the time, after all. I’m still not quite as good as I’d like to be.”

Dean shifted in his seat, turning ever so slightly towards Missouri. Almost unnoticeable.

Missouri shifted, too, facing Dean directly. “When you have an extraordinary mind,” she murmured, “you need to learn to use it. And you, Dean, have an extraordinary mind.”

The violet ventured out a little further, being buffeted by the waves of pink and red, yet managing to keep its head above water, now.

“You’re bigger on the inside,” Missouri said. “And it could be the greatest thing about you. If you can keep it under control.”

The violet leapt out for a second, like a striking snake.

Dean’s eyes were locked with Missouri’s. There was something there, just in his eyes, which seemed just as divided as his mind. Interested, alert, and hopeful. Yet terrified at that same time. Vulnerable, and disgusted by it.

Had his father never told him this? Never once thanked him for how quickly he’d grown up, how mature he forced himself to be? Never given him the space to be… small?

Hm.

Of course not.

“It takes time. And no one can teach it to you, not even me,” Missouri continued. “You gotta solve your own brain yourself. But I could give you a head start, if you like.”

In the sun, Dean's hair was gold. A true gold.

He didn’t answer, just swallowed his words down like his dad.

Missouri scoffed and rolled her eyes. “Oh, don’t you even bother thinkin’ up an excuse. You just sit here.”

Before Dean could protest, Missouri was on her feet and striding back through the door.

Dean sat silently.

From here, without Missouri, he could hear his dad talking in hushed and hurried tones to a few other hunters. Sam was upstairs, and Dean felt a sudden need to rush to him, to scoop him up and make sure he was alright. Because part of him knew his father wasn’t thinking about that one bit.

It was almost dark out. The sun was setting, and it was getting cooler by the minute.

The boys were still riding their bikes on some other street.

The cicadas kept on humming.

Dean closed his eyes and leaned back against Missouri’s house. His father was shouting, now. He couldn’t make out the words, but it didn’t matter, anyway.

The screen door squeaked as it swung open, and clapped shut behind Missouri.

“Here you are,” she said, holding out her closed hand. 

Dean cupped his hands under hers, and she dropped a small bundle of beads in them.

“Know what that is?” Missouri asked.

“Uh…” Dean held the item up, and studied it carefully.

It was a bracelet. Probably a little too big for him. It had a bunch of beads on it shaped like skulls. Some of them were wood, but some felt heavier. Maybe bone.

“It’s a… bracelet?”

Missouri laughed. “Well, sure it is. But it’s a very particular kind of bracelet. Those beads are called ‘mala beads’,” she explained, pointing to one of the skulls. “In Tibet, it’s a meditation tool. You count the beads with your fingers to keep track of your prayers. The monks need to repeat their prayers one-hundred and eight times, and that’s mighty hard to keep count of.”

Dean’s nose wrinkled. “Yeah, but… there’s only, like, fifteen beads on here,” he said.

“A friend of mine made me this one. A… well, I guess you’d call him a peer,’ Missouri explained. “From Tibet. He had powers like mine, you see, and he was a Buddhist. He was taught to repeat a mantra while he counted the beads on his necklace. Helped him keep his mind in order.”

Dean studied the bracelet a little closer. “Really?”

Missouri nodded. “That’s right. Helped me, too. He made me that for me himself, carved each one those beads. That’s why it’s so small-- he wasn’t too good a carver,” she said with a laugh.

“Huh.” Dean smiled a little.

“You wear that, and when you’re feeling overwhelmed, you count the beads and say your mantra,” Missouri instructed.

Dean’s brows furrowed. “What’s a mantra?”

“Just words. Any words you like, any that will help,” Missouri said. “You don’t have to tell me what you choose. And you can think on it a while.”

Dean looked back up at Missouri. “What’s yours?”

Missouri stopped there.

A question she didn’t want to answer.

She leaned back in her chair, and closed her eyes. The last glowing rays of the setting sun passed gracefully over her features, illuminating their form in that same painterly way that Dean had noted before. It was approximate, great swathes of golden light and even darker, cooler shadows.

“I’m not invincible. And I am not afraid,” Missouri said. She said it so softly.

Dean could see the paintings beside one another.

The first, of Missouri hunched over, surveying her street from the comfort of her proch. She scowled at the world beyond that artificial barrier for reasons Dean couldn’t yet grasp. The sun like a halo behind her. Its title: ‘I’m not invincible.’

The second, beside it… Leaned back in her chair. Her face almost entirely obscured in golden light. Its title: ‘And I am not afraid.’

Her mantra.

Dean didn’t like it.

And that was childish of him, but he was a child. And he deserved it.

He did like something else she’d said, though.

_I am bigger on the inside_.

Dean clenched the bracelet in his fist, allowing the beads to slide against each other. It was a satisfying, solid feeling.

He slipped it over his right hand and settled it about his wrist. He pinched one skull between his left thumb and forefinger, rubbing it a little, and thought of the phrase.

_I am bigger on the inside_.

He passed the bead out of his fingers and grabbed onto the nest.

_I am bigger on the inside_.

And again.

_I am bigger on the inside_.

_I am bigger on the inside_.

Missouri tried not to listen, but the strength of Dean’s thoughts all but kicked down the door to her mind.

_I am bigger on the inside_.

_I am bigger on the inside_.

Loud as they were, they were colorless.

Missouri went back inside.


	2. The MTM Black Patriot Wristwatch he wears on his left hand

"Happy birthday, kiddo."

John put a plain, black box down on the table and pushed it towards Dean.

Dean looked at his father, trying not to let his eagerness show. "Dad, c'mon, I said--"

John waved his hand. It was a very casual motion, and yet Dean had the sense that he was wallowing in his humility. "Yeah, yeah. You said what you always say." John pushed the box forward another few inches. "My boy's turning sixteen, I'm gonna get him something."

Dean hesitated still. He was waiting for the punchline, for some sort of "gotcha" moment. 

John nodded at the box. "Go on!"

He sounded… happy.

Dean let a smile tug at the corner of his mouth and reached for the package.

Now came the next step: not getting his hopes up.

That was easier said than done. In a smelly motel room, after weeks on end of zig-zagging across the country only to end up elbow-deep in blood and viscera, good stuff tended to look _damn_ good. Birthdays and holidays became sacred havens away from the pressures of hunting and scrimping. It was far too easy to imagine perfection and be let down.

After all, there were certain expectations when a kid turned sixteen. Even though Dean hadn't had the time or opportunity to get his license, the lack of proper ID had never stopped the Winchesters before.

The box was the right size for a permit. He imagined the laminated card nestled into a bed of cotton fluff... maybe the right size, even, for a fake permit and the keys to the Impala. Would he finally get to drive it?

Dean paused, his hands hovering over the box.

_Cool it_ , he thought. _I'm bigger on the inside. I'm bigger on the inside_.

Maybe it didn't make sense, but the phrase calmed him. His attention focused momentarily on Missouri's bracelet. The familiar weight around his wrist made him relax and steady himself.

"C'mon, Dean!" Sam whined. "Open it already!"

Dean laughed. "Alright, alright!"

He lifted the lid.

It was…

"A watch?" Dean asked. The tone in his voice was in iffy territory, so he course-corrected. "Uh… wow, dad, this must've set you back."

His father smiled easily. "Ah, nothin' a few extra credit card scams couldn't getcha."

Dean stared down at the device in the box.

It was complicated. Technical. It didn't just tell time, it… it did a bunch of other things, too, and Dean couldn't name a single one. 

It had this really thick band made of ugly plastic chunks. Like some sort of grown-up McDonald's toy. Like it was designed for the wearer not to choke on any little pieces which might happen to come off.

A thing for kids to play adult.

John leaned over and lifted the watch out of the box. It looked even uglier in his hands, Dean thought. So much more obvious in its trickery.

"It's a military watch. Got all kindsa gagets," John explained, twisting some unseen dial on the side of the device. "See, right here, for example…"

Dean leaned back in his chair and folded his arms over his chest.

He should be thankful.

That was an expensive watch. A really nice watch. Might even be useful from time to time.

But, God, that was what made it so shitty, wasn't it? Like his dad only got it for his because it would make him a more effective monster-killer. 

Sam leaned over the table, watching his father talk about… compasses and the lunar calendar or some shit, pointing to weird markings on the watch face.

A fake permit would have cost so little compared to this stupid hunk of plastic and gears.

All Dean could think was how little he wanted to wear it. How stupid he thought it looked. He would have preferred a watch with a leather band, he thought. Or, hey! Here's a thought! No watch at all!

His fingers wandered over the skull beads 

_I'm bigger on the inside._

_I'm bigger on the inside._

It didn't mean anything. Insides didn't matter to a man like John, the only thing he saw was his little soldiers. Scratch that: all he saw was his _obedient_ little soldier and his _disobedient_ little soldier.

Here Dean was thinking he was punk or something when all he did was listen to his dad. Wear his stupid watch.

_I'm bigger on the inside._

_Bigger._

"Figure it'll help you stay outta so much trouble in the field" John said with a laugh, handing the watch back over to his son. "You think so?"

He looked proud. Genuinely.

Dean forced a smile and a little chuckle as he took the watch back. "Well, I-I guess it'd better, huh?"

John snorted softly in response. An approval, if small.

Dean wrapped the watch around his left wrist.

He already hated the way it felt. The plastic band was making him sweat. And it was so wide… he rolled his wrist a bit, and felt the way his hand hit the watch band in almost every direction. 

The back of the watch face was cold right out of the box, but heated up fast against his skin. And it stuck. Had to peel away.

But Dean looked up and smiled at his father anyway.

John smiled back.

Sam was pretty quiet. He was only twelve, but he was tuned into his family like nobody's business. He could read a room but good. He knew when to stay quiet.

"Well, there ya go," John said, getting to his feet. "Don't say I never did nothin' for ya."

Dean forced a light laugh.

He looked down at the watch. It looked wrong against his skin. Looked wrong next to the rolled-up sleeve of his flannel.

But he'd wear it anyway.

It made him feel weak and small. That he's just bend to his father's will like that, wear this stupid piece of shit around just so his father's ego didn't get bruised. That he'd sacrifice his own identity to zip on his father's like a suit, when deep down he hated it. Hated it more than anything.

Or did that make him… stronger? Bigger?

Dean closed his eyes and ran his fingers over the skulls.

A normal sixteen-year-old would have had a big party. With all his friends and shit. And a cake, probably.

And it would have been one of those events that you kind of dread, because you feel like it's gonna feel so stupid and forced, and then… everyone comes together, and you sit at a sticky table in an Outback Steakhouse and talk for hours and hours and hours. And you get on your bikes to go home, and when you say goodbye it feels like you're saying goodbye forever, because it won't be the same when you see them tomorrow. 

They'll be different. 

You'll be different.

"Hey, dad?" Dean blurted. The sound was raspy, almost choked.

"Mm-hm?" His father was poking through the little motel fridge.

"I-I was wondering… if maybe…" Dean's fingers danced over the skull beads, pinching each one in turn. "Well, since I'm sixteen now, I thought--"

"Spit it out, Dean," John muttered.

Dean bit back theindless words, swallowed, and tried again. "I thought maybe I could have a beer with you."

John froze.

Sam looked up at Dean with a specific sort of anxiety in his eyes. The 'you poked the bear' anxiety.

Dean cleared his throat. "J-just because I've been on a lot more hunts recently, and you always have a beer with the other hunters. I thought maybe--"

"The other hunters are adults, Dean," John cut in firmly. He closed the mini fridge with perhaps a little more force than was warranted.

_Bigger on the inside._

"Yeah, but I just thought-- well, dad, I'm pretty mature for my age," Dean spluttered. He forced a laugh, but it sounded nervous and childish. "And I thought that-- I've just always wanted to. To do that with you."

John turned to face him.

Dean had maybe made a misstep.

"What, the watch not good enough for you?" John asked. His voice was in that low tone just before he started telling. Like when the tide pulled out before a tsunami.

Dean shook his head. "The watch is great, really. I just wanted to ask because-- well, I thought the watch was your way of saying I'm a-- a hunter."

John scoffed. "Dean, you're a damn kid. I know being sixteen makes you feel like you're the shit, but you don't get a beer just for feeling like you're the shit."

Dean recoiled slightly. He felt Sam draw closer to his side. Hard to notice, but definitely there.

Sam gripped his arm.

Dean suddenly shot to his feet. The chair squeaked against the wood floor.

John squared his shoulders, like he was facing down a grizzly bear. He didn't say anything, just waited patiently for Dean to make his next move.

"What makes me different from the other hunters?" Dean asked. His voice was surprisingly dark.

John scoffed and rolled his eyes. "Oh, please…"

"No, I'm serious!" Dean pushed. "You expect just as much out of me, y-you push me around, you make me fight and shoot and-- and it's _bullshit_ that you still treat me like a dumb kid!"

"Don't swear at me, Dean!" John spat back. He took one heavy step towards Dean, and Sam shrank back a little more.

"But I can kill for you, right?!" Dean shouted.

John grew deathly silent.

Dean could feel Sam's grip on the back of his shirt tightening more and more.

_I'm bigger on the inside._

_I'm bigger on the inside._

John raised a hand. For a moment, Dean thought he would smack his across the cheek, and he braced for impact.

But John only pointed at the door. "Get out."

Dean set his jaw. He clenched his teeth once, twice. Staring his father down. Daring him to lay a hand on Dean.

_I'm bigger._

_Be bigger._

"Fine," Dean said. He turned and put a hand on Sam's head, ruffling his hair. "You stay here, okay?"

Sam looked up at his brother, his eyes wide. He nodded.

Dean didn't look back at his father, just walked past his brother with his head held high and out the door.

The evening air was unseasonably warm, but still had that January bite to it that made your lungs ache. Dean considered going back for a jacket, but had to cast the thought out of his mind.

There was a bench to his right. Just one of those little 'I'm a teenager waiting for my dad to check into the motel' pieces of seating. At least, in Dean's experience, that's what they were mostly used for.

He flopped down onto the bench. The outside wall of the motel was that ugly, coarse, sandpaper-y texture, the architectural equivalent of a pilly sweater. But Dean rested his head against it anyway, and all the little paint balls or whatever-the-hell dug into his scalp.

Being the bigger person sucked ass.

And it was fucking cold.

Dean sat there for a long time, listening to the hum of the vending machine beside him and staring out into the darkness.

Smelled like snow, maybe.

A door opened.

Dean whipped his head to the side, expecting to see his father stalking out here to beat his ass.

But it was Sam who slunk out of the room, closing the door softly behind him.

"Sammy?" Dean asked.

Sam smiled sympathetically. He was holding his arm kinda strange, Dean thought. Weirdly rigid under his too-big jacket.

He scuttled over to Dean and sat down, then slid a bottle out from his jacket sleeve.

Dean did a double-take. Then laughed. "Did you steal this for me?"

Sam shrugged and passed the brown bottle to his brother. "I thought you deserved one is all."

Dean grinned. He dug his hand into his jeans pocket and fished around for his pocket knife. He had a bottle opener on it, he remembered. Never had the chance to use it before now.

The cap popped off the bottle and clattered to the sidewalk between his feet.

Dean took a deep smell of the forbidden stuff. It smelled… well, honestly, it smelled terrible. More like food than a drink should ever smell. 

But this is what the big guys drank. So Dean took a swig.

Sam watched expectantly and mischievously, maybe half-expecting Dean to hate it.

It burned as it went down, but not as much as he'd been led to believe. It didn't taste great, but it tasted better than he'd thought.

Dean imagined that he was drinking with his father. That they were sat on the trunk of the Impala, drinking beers together out of a cooler, celebrating a job well done. That his father was proud of him, but silently.

And he realized how much happier he was with Sam's approval.

"So?" Sam asked. "What does it taste like?"

Dean opened his mouth to respond with something snappy, but paused.

Sam was bigger on the inside, too.

Dean held out the bottle to Sam. "You wanna taste?"

Sam's eyes got huge. "Really?!"

Dean shrugged. "Yeah, why not? You stole it for me."

Sam reached out to hesitantly take the bottle with two hands. Dean tried not to laugh as his brother held the bottle under his nose and recoiled.

"Ew!" Sam exclaimed. He held it away from his face, forcing it back at Dean. "Smells like bad breath! Gross!"

Dean couldn't hold back anymore. He took the bottle back from his brother as he laughed hysterically. "It's an acquired taste, Sam!"

Sam made another incomprehensible sound of disgust, and looked towards the vending machine. "I'm gonna get a soda."

"Alright, alright."

Sam hopped up from the bench and started digging through his pockets for change.

Dean watched his brother pop the coins into the machine and ponder the options. He sipped his beer, which tasted better with each mouthful, and kept him warm from the inside out.

He knew he'd be caught eventually. But it didn't matter just now.

The words were starting to mean a little more.

_I'm bigger on the inside._

_I'm bigger on the inside._


	3. The Silver Ring he wears on his right ring finger

Biking with Lee Webb was the closest to normal that Dean ever got.

Maybe that's sad. But it wasn't to Dean.

It would be sad to someone on the outside. Someone who had seen normal--lived it--and could point to every little thing Dean was missing. The friends. The stability. The normalcy. Other things not so easily defined, the little details that slip in the cracks and fill up the corners of your heart.

To Dean, though… any taste of the average American life was euphoric.

He was twenty-one years old, after all, and he still didn't have a car of his own. He mostly followed his dad around, because what else was there? Credit card scams and public transit? Hitchhiking?

Dean didn't even have a bicycle to call his own.

Lee, however, had two.

Probably because he'd stolen two, but Dean didn't care one bit. All he could think about was the way the seat rumbled, the way the tires peeled along the pavement, the way the grips felt in his palms. That rhythmic, hypnotic, musical feeling. _Clickita-clickita-clickita-clickita_.

Lee looked back over his shoulder. "C'mon, Dean! You gettin' old or somethin'?"

It took Dean a moment to register his friend's words, as if he was emerging from deep underwater. "I'm letting you win, asshole!" He laughed joyously.

"Oh, sure, sure…" Lee muttered.

Lee rose up from the bike seat, pumping his legs with all of his might. Something about his stance made Dean think of a cowboy jockeying his horse through the desert sand… or maybe it was the leather jacket, the mud-splattered boots, the hair in the wind.

Eh, who says it couldn’t be a little of each?

Dean was panting hard, but wouldn’t--couldn't--back down from a challenge. He mimicked Lee’s form, hunched and huffing, and began to pedal with everything he had. In just moments, he was catching some significant air off the smallest of hills and valleys in the old paved road. It was the kind of road where the shoulder bled onto the pavement, as if the asphalt had been excavated, rather than poured. As if the yellow lines had grown there, waiting to be found. 

The grey-brown dirt by the side of big roads always felt different under the tires. It had a crunch and a kick-back unlike anything else. More solid than sand, but finer than soil. Coarser than silt, but softer than gravel. And it had its own smell, too-- a smell which reminded Dean of freshly watered plants and burnt rubber.

Lee tossed another look over his shoulder and stuck out his tongue. "Can't catch me, old man!"

"You wish!"

Lee smiled. It was an easy, genuine smile so bright it practically glowed in the dark. It made Dean smile, too.

Everything Lee did made Dean smile.

There was something special about these times with Lee. It was like everything Dean had been dying for all his life was finally his; freedom to be a kid again, freedom to listen to the music he wanted to hear, freedom to be who he couldn’t be at home.

Freedom to drink a little, too. Shit, did his dad hate that… twenty-one years old and still not allowed to drink.

Dean’s hands gripped the handles with white knuckles for a moment, then relaxed.

He had a rule: don’t think about dad when you’re with Lee. It always gave him the worst pit in his stomach. He assumed it was because his father approved of so little the two did together. The drinking, the music… he was always trying to reach in and fix it. 'Here, boys, this is _real_ music'. 'Don't you even _think_ about drinking that stuff, boys'. 'You better not get up to any trouble out there, or so help me...'

Even without that stuff, even once he'd reached in and rearranged their relationship every which-way, John Winchester bristled at the mere mention of Lee. The most innocent bike ride or trip to the store spawned a dozen questions to which Dean had no satisfactory answer.

And that was the heart of the pit, Dean thought. That his father saw something inherently wrong with Lee. Dean couldn't let himself start thinking that way.

So, as far as Dean was concerned, John Winchester didn't exist today. As far as Dean was concerned, he'd been put on God's green Earth to spend a day with Lee, no father required.

The boys coasted through the neighborhood. They were practically flying. The smell of the autumn-evening air, the way it rushed past Dean's face and blew back his hair, the way it made his t-shirt ripple like a sail… it was everything. It was the whole world to him.

Lee glanced back at Dean with a mischievous twinkle in his eye, then leaned to his left. His bike went sailing around a corner. Dean barely had time to react, and his own bike fishtailed a little as he tried to right himself.

"H-hey, where we goin'?" Dean called ahead.

"Ah, you'll see," Lee responded. He said it out ahead of himself, his voice sort of breathless and light.

He was slowing down now. The race was over, apparently.

Dean gave his pedals three more huge pumps and found himself riding beside Lee. From here, at last, he could hear the fuzzy and tinny notes belching out of Lee’s already-busted discman. He took that thing everywhere he went, always had a CD burned for every occasion… always managed to drop it or kick it or get it between himself and a monster. The idiot.

None of the lyrics were recognizable over the wind and the _clikita-clikita_ of the bikes cruising, but Dean knew it anyway: Pearl Jam, _State of Love and Trust_.

His father despised Pearl Jam.

No, no. Don’t think about him.

Lee was humming along under his breath, muttering a line here or there. “ _And I listen, yeah, for the voice inside my head_ ,” he crooned. Somehow, the bike ride had not left him as utterly spent as his companion. Dean couldn’t have sung a note if he tried.

Not that he would have wanted to. Dean didn’t exactly fancy himself a singer, after all-- that was more Lee’s thing. He was happy enough listening.

Maybe one day… maybe one day, Dean would learn to play an instrument. And then they could go out together, guitar slung over Dean’s back, and find a bridge perfect for sitting and dangling your feet over the water. And Dean would play, and Lee would sing, and they’d lose whole days that way.

It made Dean smile. The thought of the sun glittering on the river (it would be a river, he decided). Of Lee drumming against his thigh as he sang. Of the feeling of the strings shuddering under his fingers, singing in a voice which wasn’t half as good as Lee’s, but that Lee would ask for anyways.

It was want for normalcy, Dean told himself. He wanted the same stuff every other boy his age had.

But when he replaced Lee with someone else…

“Up here!” Lee was pointing off to the right. 

Another turn, wide and arcing, this time to the right around a bend. Dean watched.

There was no obvious destination, Dean noted; just some tall plants and an old concrete bench. But Lee seemed satisfied.

“We’ll have to lock up the bikes and take a hike out," Lee explained.

“A hike?” Dean repeated. He forced a chuckle. “Hey, c’mon-- I’m off-duty!”

Lee scoffed. “Yeah, right! With that fuckin’ jarhead watch of yours…” He laughed. “As if you’re ever off-duty.”

He didn’t wait for a response, just pulled off by the side of the road and dismounted his bike gracefully before it had even stopped moving. Dean didn’t dare attempt the same move.

As Dean awkwardly climbed off his bike, he did his best to take in his surroundings. 

It was marshy here. A lot of… cattails, or something. Except not cattails, because those little brown spokes were nowhere to be seen. Just plants which maybe could have been unusually thick blades of grass. Dean wondered briefly if you could cut yourself on one of those.

They went out far. Like, national-park far. But just on the one side of the road. The other side had a bunch of expensive townhouses and shit like usual, up at the top of a sloping incline.

Well. Dean assumed they were expensive. He didn't have any way of knowing.

Lee stuffed the discman in his pack and produced a single bike lock and key. He set about locking up the bikes to a bench by the side of the road. He was whistling along to the music which was no longer playing.

Dean held his bike against the side of the bench.

It smelled good out here, he thought. Most people hated that marsh-y smell, but something about the wet sand and the water and the greenery just filled Dean’s lungs in all the right ways. He took a deep breath, exhaled. Then another.

Crisp autumn air. Sharp sand and stagnant water. Warm, spiced beer. That part was in Dean’s head, of course-- but it would mingle with the others soon enough.

The bike lock shot home with a satisfying sound.

Lee stood up and re-adjusted his pack. Dean heard the beer bottles clink together inside it. “Alright, let’s go. Ready?"

He looked kinda boy scout-y, with both hands on the straps of his backpack. His jacket was leather, but not a punk-rock black… a good, worn brown that felt very comforting. The kind that smelled less like tires and more like a cozy living room with a crackling fireplace.

Dean could feel that he was standing awkwardly. His shoulders too square, too high. He could sense his ken doll-esque posture, and yet couldn’t do a thing about it.

“Uh… out there?” Dean asked, pointing into the cattails.

Lee rolled his eyes. He stood there so naturally and easily… How did it come so easy to him? “Nah, we’re having a fuckin' picnic in the middle of the road. Yeah, out there!”

Dean considered this a moment.

“There’s a trail, y'dope,” Lee encouraged. He smirked and grabbed Dean by the arm. “Standing there like a damn deer in the headlights…”

And they were off, Dean being pulled through the not-cattails by one arm, Lee marching ahead of him authoritatively. Once they were far back enough in the marsh, Lee released his grip on Dean’s arm.

The path wasn’t wide enough for two, and so Dean still trailed behind his friend. They were perfectly quiet, save for the soft crunching of their boots on the sandy trail. In some especially twisty parts, Dean had to turn sideways and sort of shimmy to avoid crashing through the vegetation.

Lee was whistling happily. Dean thought he recognized the tune, but couldn't name it. Probably something his dad would have hated.

Nope. Stop thinking about dad.

Searching for a way to fill the silence, Dean cleared his throat. “How’d you find this place, anyway?”

Lee looked back at Dean. “Oh, y’know, I… I asked around.”

Dean scoffed. “Asked who, exactly?”

“Locals.”

“What locals?”

“Just locals, Dean!” Lee said with a laugh. “Boy, you’re dumber than you look.”

Dean flushed a bit, but said nothing.

“I-I don’t mean that,” Lee stammered. “Just bein’ an ass.”

“I know it.”

“I tend to be an ass.”

Dean scoffed. “I know it.”

“But it’s not ‘cause I don’t like you,” Lee added. “It’s just ‘cause… well, it’s just ‘cause I’m an ass sometimes.”

Dean’s hand went to his watch. It had become a new habit, just like the bracelet. Something to run his fingers along when he felt… well, he didn’t know what he felt. To make him stop feeling whatever it was he felt.

“Yeah, well. I can be an ass, too, I guess.”

Lee chuckled. “We can be asses together, then.”

Dean smiled to himself. Lee didn’t see it.

The sand at their feet turned to wood in a way that seemed far too natural to be explained. Like a convenient little dock had risen from the marsh in just the right spot. The soft crunching sounds turned to heavier, hollower thuds.

A wind blew through the marsh. The not-cattails rustled. It sounded like the ocean, Dean thought. Or maybe like the long, low 'hush' of a librarian. Stupid as it sounded, it made the whole thing feel all the more secretive. It was like the whole marsh was warning him not to tell. Not to spoil it. This was a special place.

The water was deepening, now. Dean didn't exactly know how marshes worked, but he thought he remembered photos in National Geographic once. They were like a collection of really shallow, really small islands. He guessed that they were over the water between islands.

Suddenly, he could see the whole thing from above, like in Indiana Jones. He could see that little dotted line as Lee lead him through the marsh.

"I think we're pretty-- ah-ha!" Lee broke into a jog after interrupting his own thoughts. His boots pounding on the dock caused it to sway ever so slightly back and forth.

Dean braced as the waves calmed and settled. The water lapped at the edge of the path, splattering onto the wood and staining it darker.

Lee had disappeared around a bend. Always ahead of him, that kid.

Dean followed the gently swelling dock.

When he rounded the next turn, Dean saw Lee standing on a large, square dock. It was maybe the size of your average postage-stamp college dorm (or so Dean assumed, based on the television shows he’d seen). No, a little smaller. Maybe a mattress was the right comparison; a king-size. Or was it California king? Whichever one was big and square, he guessed.

The wood was in that old, soft stage. Little patches of moss coated the underside of those boards, Dean was sure of it.

Lee slipped his pack off and dropped it down near one end of the dock. The bottles inside tinkled against one another.

“Pretty sweet, right?” Lee asked. His expression said he knew exactly how sweet it was, and just wanted to hear Dean praise his find.

Dean was still looking at it, though. He took the last few steps onto the dock, and found that it was rooted to the bed of the marsh. His knees were thankful. As was his stomach.

The dock was surrounded by the not-cattails, which were so dense they could have been wallpaper. Dean could now see that the plants did, in fact, have little spires on them-- only they didn’t come out of the top like cattails. They came about halfway up each stalk, near Dean’s hips and Lee’s navel. They also weren’t brown at all; they were totally green, and matched the stalks exactly.

Dean wanted to comment on the plants, but thought that might be a little geeky.

“Yeah. Pretty sweet,” Dean agreed.

Lee grinned at the approval. “I knew you’d like it. Just figured we could use some privacy, right? Hard to get on the bed next to your dad in a motel room.”

Dean laughed a bit, but it was a dry laugh. The kind that said ‘I’d love to joke about it, believe me, but it just sucks so much ass’.

Twenty-one years old, and couldn’t drink.

Except when he had some privacy. 

For whatever reason, privacy and Lee seemed to go hand in hand. And that isn’t to say that it wasn’t truly privacy for his being there; on the contrary, Dean believed this sort of alone time to be far superior to being truly alone. Like somehow being alone with Lee was more alone than being just… alone.

Not more lonely. More alone. They’re different.

At least they were to Dean. 

Lee sat down on the dock. He had his legs stretched out in front of him, boots near the edge of the dock. He pulled his pack over to his side and began to unload its contents: four beers (Sam Adams), a bag of sunflower seeds (partially devoured), the discman (beat as ever), and a couple of assorted CDs (in unlabeled cases).

There was one more thing in the pack. Down at the bottom, with the stray sunflower seeds and some lint. Lee’s hand closed around it, then he did a sort of double-take, and abandoned it. He tipped the pack up and tucked it off to one side.

“C’mon, I need your swiss,” Lee said. He held out his hand for Dean’s knife.

Dean gave Lee a funny look. “Who exactly told you about this place again?”

Lee rolled his eyes and dropped his hand to his side. “Some of the guys at the bar. What, scared we’re gonna get jumped?”

Dean folded his arms, but didn’t answer.

Lee just held his hand out again. “C’mon, y’big baby. Gimme your knife.”

Dean could only hold his persona of concern a moment longer before fishing the knife out of his pocket and handing it over.

“Now, siddown,” Lee commanded, patting the dock next to him.

Dean did as he was asked and eased down onto the wood.

Lee flicked open the knife blade. It had a familiar _wish-click_ sound.

“That has a bottle-opener, y’know,” Dean pointed out. He reached over to take the knife from Lee, but he held it just out of Dean’s reach.

“Ah-ah!” Lee scolded. He flashed Dean yet another devilish look. “Let me show off for once, wouldya?”

He took hold of one of the bottles around the neck, choked almost all the way up to the cap. The back edge of the blade slid in neatly between the underside of the cap and the back of Lee’s thumb. One flick of the wrist and the cap flew right off, landing in the water with a neat _plink!_

Lee feigned a small bow from his sitting position.

“Fuckin’ idiot…” Dean muttered through a poorly-hidden smile.

The cap flew off the next bottle in much the same way, this time landing on a plank and rolling some distance.

Dean took his bottle from a very smug Lee. “If there’s broken glass in this, I will--”

“There won’t be any glass, Jesus...” Lee said, clapping Dean on the shoulder.

Slowly, hesitantly, Dean sipped his beer. As soon as the liquid hit his tongue, he forgot what he’d been mad about.

Dean didn’t drink around his father. Not because his father forbade it, exactly; more like he always had something to say about it. Some complaint or correction. ‘Don’t drink that too fast, Dean’, or ‘you best not be going on a hunt after that one’, or ‘and what exactly are you celebrating with that drink?’

But, with Lee, Dean was free to do it his way. No corrections. No complaints.

And so beer tasted like Lee.

The sun was going down mighty fast. Golden hour had passed, and the whole marsh was bathed in an unearthly blue light. Even that was fading quickly, passing into darkness.

“You ever think about going to college?” Lee asked suddenly. He sounded almost casual, as if he were talking about heading down to the local Blockbuster to rent a video.

Dean looked over at his companion. “What, like… now?”

Lee shrugged. “Sure. Never too late, or so they say.”

“Why would you go to college?” Dean asked.

“I feel like…” Lee sighed. “Shit, I mean, I just feel like there’d be more people there like us. Hate all these old dudes tryna tell us how to do things. They don’t get it. They don’t get us, y’know?”

Dean thought that over.

It was true, even in the very topical way that Dean could access. He was nothing like his father. He wasn’t anything like any of the other hunters he met-- they were all near his dad’s age and just thought of him as some dumb kid.

Maybe he was. But he didn’t want to be.

“They won’t be around forever,” was what Dean said. He may have meant to say something different.

Lee laughed wryly. “Guess that’s true. I don’t wanna just wait around for your old man to die, though.” The sentence felt bad coming out of his mouth. “What I mean is-- well, I just want to skip the waiting part. The waiting part sucks. I know what I want, y'know?”

Dean nodded. “Yeah.”

Lee nodded, too. “Yeah.”

They sat like this for a moment, just looking off into the distance solemnly. Then Lee tipped back the rest of his beer and laid all the way down on the dock. He landed there with a mighty sigh, one hand on his stomach, the other palm up beside Dean.

“Would you have picked this?” Lee asked.

Dean cocked his head. “Being a hunter?”

Lee looked disappointed somehow. “Yeah.”

“I dunno. I try not to think about that stuff,” Dean said. He reached up to scratch the back of his head. “I mean, if I did know for sure… that I would’ve picked this over anything else… that feels kinda pathetic, I guess. Like it doesn’t matter what I do, I’m just getting tossed from thing to thing. Like I owe everything I've done to... t'destiny, or some shit.”

Lee rolled his head to look at Dean. “But, if you didn’t…”

Dean looked at Lee, daring him to finish.

“Well--” Lee shifted himself up onto one elbow. “C’mon, if you didn’t pick this--or wouldn’t’ve or whatever--then it’s like… you wasted that time. Spent twenty-one years doing this horseshit for no reason.”

Dean clucked his tongue. “Man, not for no reason. I helped people.”

“Yeah, everyone but yourself,” Lee snapped back. He was trying to be funny, but he didn’t stick the landing. “Sorry.”

Dean paused, then shrugged. “Yeah, well. I am who I am.”

Lee shook his head and laughed. “Goddamn, you’re a stubborn sonuvabitch.” He fell back onto the wood and laughed some more.

“Shut up…” Dean scolded half-heartedly.

Lee smiled to himself, eyes closed.

Dean just stared at him. He wondered what it would be like to know himself as well as Lee seemed to know him. Or even to know _Lee_ as well as Lee seemed to know him.

He always felt like there was some joke that Lee was in on, but kept from Dean quite expertly. It was like everything he said, everything he did, was dancing around something… something which Dean could very nearly see, and yet couldn’t get a hold of.

The discman and the CDs were still out of the dock, untouched. The bag of sunflower seeds, similarly unopened, leaned up against them. Dean wondered if Lee had plans for these, or if they were simply his usual fare for biking about, and he had neglected to remove them.

Lee snuck an eye open to peek at Dean. “Would you lay down or something? You’re all tensed up like a damn puma. Stressing me out.”

Dean made some low sound of disapproval, but spun himself around and laid down next to Lee.

The sky was clear. It was hard to find a place to look at the night sky without all the light pollution and air pollution and… fuckin’ noise pollution, even. Always someone setting off bottle rockets for no reason other than they just goddamn feel like it.

Not that Dean… _hadn’t_ set off bottle rockets because he just goddamn felt like it.

Little stars were beginning to peek out here and there as the sun sank lower. This was a good spot, Dean thought. Nice of the guys to let Lee in on it. Whoever those guys were.

Dean let one hand fall to the dock between him and Lee. It wasn’t a gesture meant to mean anything, just a motion he made. Simple.

Lee dropped his hand, as well. 

The boys’ little fingers brushed together. Then Lee’s crept out, ever so slowly, and hooked itself around Dean’s.

Dean’s breath caught in his throat, but Lee sighed happily. Softly. Barely heard over the rustling reeds.

A lot of things happened to Dean very quickly, although to him they probably felt slower than molasses dripping off a spoon.

His heart thudded heavily against the inside of his chest. It was strong, echoes of its throbs creeping up his throat and down into his stomach. An unholy clenching that made Dean shiver. Made his toes curl.

His cheeks flushed quickly and thoroughly. That hot, patchy feeling came over his face, like when you do something outrageously stupid for a very large audience.

The gears of his mind wanted very desperately to crunch back over the events of the evening, of the year, of the past few years, wondering where it went wrong. Where the wires were crossed. How in the hell did Lee misread things to this point, and did he in fact misread things at all, or was he just reading things in a language Dean himself couldn’t interpret?

Mostly, though, that pit in his stomach yawned wide. Wider than it had ever been. A deep, dark, evil place, and he was teetering on the edge. About to go over.

They were going to be caught.

But what was there to catch? Just… just two friends whose fingers were touching. It didn’t mean a goddamn thing, did it? Didn’t mean a thing…

“One day,” Lee said, “I’ll go to college. Or, if I don’t go to college, I’ll go to trade school or somethin’. I think it might fix me up a bit.”

_You don’t need fixing,_ Dean thought, _you’re bigger on the inside._ We’re _bigger on the inside._

_Bigger._

Lee squeezed his little finger.

Dean hesitated, but squeezed back. 

It was a little thing. In the grand scheme of things that could have happened, it was so small. 

The funny bit of it was that Lee had touched him much more fully and aggressively. There had been times hunting when Lee had all but tackled him, or grabbed him about the waist to pull him out of the line of fire. Those sorts of touches hadn't meant a thing.

Then again…

Lee's free hand was draped lazily over his stomach. His eyes were closed, his too-long hair pooling on the boards. The water was making the tiniest of sounds against the dock. Like an ocean in miniature.

Dean shuffled closer to the mouth of the pit. A pit which was not unlike the others, though this one made a different moaning howl, instead of a growl or a hiss or deathly silence. It was a blue-black, as opposed to a brown-black or a green-black or a true, deep black that sucked every last thing into it. 

The hand which looped about Lee's was weak, Dean found; any attempt to move it would cause it to shake. Not like Lee. Strong, confident Lee…

Jealousy.

The thought slithered into Dean's mind, expertly cloaking all else. He was jealous of Lee's confidence.

Lee was always… bigger than Dean. Not physically, of course--Dean had him beat by a fair few inches and pounds--but in all other ways. He was braver, stronger, smarter, truer to himself than Dean had ever been. Or ever would be.

Dean wanted to grab at his bracelet and carefully count the skulls. Center himself. His fingertips were buzzing with energy, but there was no place to put it.

Crickets. So many crickets, how had he not heard them before? A veritable symphony.

Lee cleared his throat. His hand started to retreat. "Might not be in the cards, I guess. Dunno how I'd pay for it."

Their fingers parted.

Lee pushed himself into an upright position and grabbed his beer once more. He didn't drink it; just held it loosely with both hands, his elbows on his knees. His head was tilted down, his hair falling forward just enough that Dean couldn't make out his face.

For a moment, Dean couldn't move. He may have even held his breath, though he likely would have no way of knowing.

Then the energy from his fingertips reached his heart, and he scrambled into a sitting position.

Lee cast his companion a sidelong glance of imperceptible meaning.

"Y-you should," Dean said. His voice came out hoarse and rough. "Go to college, I mean. You deserve it."

Lee laughed wryly. "Yeah, right. To admissions boards I'm just some stupid hick." He tossed back another mouthful of beer.

His face was still obscured by his hair. He seemed to be doing it on purpose, looking down and away from Dean at just the right angle.

Dean scooted across the boards to be just a little bit closer to him. "Lee, I--"

Lee turned his head even further away. "Sorry," he said. The word was thick and low, said around whatever it was he was disguising.

Sorry…

Dean reached out with one hand. It was shaking, and wished to God he could make it stop.

His fingers grazed Lee's temple, and he gently swept his hair out of the way. He told himself it was because he wanted to see Lee's face, and most certainly not because he needed an excuse to touch him back. Definitely not.

Lee reacted as Dean might have guessed, by grabbing Dean's hand by the wrist and pulling him away. In doing so, his hand closed around the skull bracelet.

Dean had never explained it to Lee. But, in that moment, as the boys sat frozen in place… it seemed that meaning was shouted down to them from on high.

_You are bigger on the inside._

Lee took a very deep breath, probably hoping to steady himself, but it only shattered his resolve.

He pulled Dean close, with one swift motion, and into a very tight embrace.

Dean hesitated once more, but wrapped his own arms around Lee and squeezed back.

Lee clutched at Dean's flannel shirt and cried helplessly. "I hate this, Dean," he said. "I hate it."

Dean didn't know what 'it' was, really.

"Yeah," he agreed. "I know." He reached one hand up to cup it around the back of Lee's head, his fingers tangling with Lee's hair.

Lee cried harder.

Dean noticed that, in the commotion, Lee's bottle of beer had fallen into its side. A puddle of brown liquid pooled on the boards, reflecting the moon in it.

He looked up at the sky. The moon was bright tonight. Dean hadn't realized that until the sun had gone down all the way, but it was glowing strongly and almost exactly half-full. It shined down on them like a spotlight.

He knew the moon didn't work that way, but it felt like it did. It felt like there wasn't a single other person in the world right now.

Lee turned his head to bury it in Dean's neck. It was a wet and slimy feeling, but Dean wasn't about to complain.

It's uncertain how long they sat like this. Time has a way of oozing by differently when the person you love is crying. 

Eventually, though, Lee's grip on Dean relaxed, and the crying dwindled. 

He pulled back a little and wiped away the snot under his nose. He laughed lightly. "Sorry. Sorry, this is stupid."

"Hey," Dean said, gripping Lee's shoulder in a manner which he hoped was supportive. "It's not stupid."

Lee laughed again. It was a tired laugh. "I just wanna skip to the part where… where all this stupid shit is done. And we own a bar. And there's no more fuckin' monsters."

Dean smiled. It was a sad smile. "Yeah. The good part."

"The good part."

Lee leaned into Dean's hand on his shoulder. Dean opened his arm and invited Lee to lean into him more fully, an invitation which Lee accepted.

Dean folded his legs into a pretzel and tried to get used to the weight of Lee's head on his chest.

Lee sniffled a bit. He drummed his fingers against Dean’s knee, without much pattern or reasoning.

If there was one thing these two boys had in common, it was an inborn fear of vulnerability. There was a strange energy which stirred up between the two of them in moments like this (although moments like this were few and far between); like the slow winding of a spring, a game of chicken against one another. Who would be the first to break the silence? Who would be too freaked to go on?

Dean was contemplating taking the dive when Lee said, "You wanna go swimming?"

Somehow, the tension was still there. Coiled like a spring. Like a cobra.

Dean was caught off-guard by the request. He was trying so hard to keep up with Lee, but good God did the boy make that hard.

He scoffed. "I'm wearing jeans, dumbass."

Hardly an answer to the question Lee had asked, though it would pass as one.

"So? Take 'em off," Lee instructed, already popping off his shoes.

Dean froze.

He watched as long as it took Lee to unzip the fly of his own jeans, then quickly averted his eyes. He listened carefully as Lee struggled off his outermost layers, and slipped down into water tinged with beer.

"Fuck, that's cold," Lee commented through clenched teeth.

The water burbled softly in Lee's wake as he spun to face Dean. 

"Hey, come on, chicken," Lee teased. His voice was still low, though, as he fought back more tears. "You're not afraid of a little dirty lake water, are ya?"

Dean tried to put his eyes back on Lee. With his leather jacket abandoned on the dock next to his pack, and his cotton t-shirt soaked and sticking to his chest… 

Lee hoisted his front half back up onto the dock to look Dean in the eye. "I don't need to start cluckin' attcha, do I?"

Dean scoffed again. "N-no. Just wanted to see if you got any leeches, dumbass."

Lee grinned. "No leeches here."

He looked like a merman or something. His lower half obscured by the water, his arms folded on the dock, his hair damp and curled over his forehead and neck. Little droplets of water on his cheeks which sparkled in the moonlight.

He stretched up taller. "Hey, c'mere."

Dean started to lean back, sensing a trick was coming, but Lee's hand shot up from the water and grabbed him by the back of the neck. He paused, musing his options, then additionally clutched Dean's shirt and pulled him head-over-heels into the water.

It took Dean a moment to get his bearings, but he surfaced to the sound of Lee's laughter.

"Man, fuck you!" Dean shouted through laughs of his own. "Goddamn boots all water-logged…"

"Then you should've taken 'em off, pussy," Lee teased.

Dean reached out and grabbed the dock, shaking his head.

"Dean, c'mon." Lee put a hand on Dean's shoulder and pulled him back. "Just… just swim with me a little while, okay? Just a little."

Dean sighed. "I will if you let me get my fuckin' boots off."

Lee smiled and released his companion. "Alright. Alright, that's fair enough."

Dean pulled himself back onto the dock. It took him some time--his fingers cold and shaking, his socks all swelled up with water--to struggle off one boot, then the other. To pull off the thoroughly-soaked jeans which stuck to his legs on the way down. To peel off his socks. To consider the watch on one wrist, then unclasp it. To consider the bracelet on the other, and keep it on.

All the while, Lee held onto the edge of the dock with two hands, waiting patiently. Watching carefully.

At last, though, Dean eased himself back down into the water. His toes met with the sandy bottom of the marsh.

Or not a marsh. A lake, maybe.

But it didn't really matter what he called it, now, did it? What mattered is there was water to swim in, and he was submerged. And the water was cool and refreshing. And the boy with him was smiling, reaching for him in the water.

Thoughts of monsters and futures and the watchful eyes of fathers and dark realities of the outside world left Dean's head for what was probably the first time in many years. Quite possibly his whole life. Lee's hand found his waist, and he didn't have to try not to be scared.

He was still scared. But he let that be okay. He wasn't trying to be brave, like he always was.

Lee's hand was very gentle. It didn't wander, just moved minutely to confirm that, yes, Dean was still there. He wasn't trying to get away. He was real, not a monster waiting to catch him off-guard.

"Hey…" Lee murmured. His hand squeezed Dean's side gently. "Hey, we're gonna have a good part, right?"

Dean nodded. "Yeah. We will."

"We're gonna have it together, right?" Lee asked. His hand drifted upwards, fingers running along Dean's ribs.

Dean laughed breathlessly. "I hope so."

"Do you promise?"

Dean blinked. "Uh… I mean, I dunno what--"

"I don't care what happens in-between," Lee said. His voice was barely more than a whisper. "I just-- when it's safe, when we're both safe, I wanna have a good part together. Just one day. After all the monsters."

"What if there's not an after?" Dean asked softly.

Lee made a sound somewhere between a laugh and a sob. "There's gotta be. 'Cause, if there's not, I dunno if I could keep on livin'. Someday, we'll be done. We have to be," he whispered, his hand falling from Dean's side and drifting through the water. "I'm so sick of it already, Jesus…"

"Hey, hey!" Dean put a hand roughly on Lee's cheek and turned his face back up towards his. Dean couldn't help but be struck by how moony-eyed and helpless he looked. "D-don't talk like that, okay? C'mon, Lee, you're-- I mean, you're--"

Lee's eyes shimmered with tears not yet wept. Or maybe tears already wept. Or maybe it was just the light of the moon, or the water on his face-- God knows, it could've been anything.

He was braver, stronger, truer. Always there. Always better. He was everything Dean wished he was. He was the taste of normal, the taste of the good part, for God's sake!

He was… he was the good part.

He was Dean's good part.

"You're the best, okay?" Dean said. 

It wasn't nearly enough. It felt like a cop-out.

But... well, maybe it was more of that secret language that Lee spoke fluently, and Dean simply couldn't suss out. Maybe it was the way Dean was holding his cheek, gently stroking his thumb over it. Maybe it had absolutely nothing to do with what Dean was doing right now-- maybe it was just one of those things that Lee had been waiting years to do, and he wasn't about to wait one goddamn second more.

He raised his hand, slowly, and put it right where Dean's neck met his shoulder. He pulled himself up those last few inches and kissed Dean.

It wasn't a long or particularly passionate kiss, just a kiss that had been a long time coming. A kiss that tasted a little bit like lake water and a little bit like beer.

Lee broke the kiss quickly, but Dean guided him back with a hand on his cheek. One more. This one Dean's.

Lee sank back down to the marsh bed.

"I promise," Dean said.

Maybe that was true, and maybe it wasn't. Lee knew it as well as Dean: there really was only one way to get out of this line of work, and there wouldn't be any happy ending when all was said and done. 

Hunters don't believe in heaven.

Except tonight, when these two hunters did.

"You do?" Lee asked.

"Yeah," Dean said. "When it's all over, I'll find you. I promise."

Lee breathed in deeply, then let out a sigh. A psych-up sigh. "Can I give you something?"

Dean chuckled. "I think that depends what it is."

Lee rolled his eyes and pushed off the marsh bed, back towards the dock. He tipped his pack over and stuck his arm in it up to the elbow, rooted around a while, and pulled out something small and silver.

"The hell is that?" Dean asked.

"One of the guys at the bar gave it to me," Lee explained, paddling back to Dean.

"Starting to think these guys at the bar may not be the kinda 'guys at the bar' I'm picturing," Dean said with a nervous chuckle.

Lee smirked. "Y-yeah, I doubt it." 

He held up the object for Dean to see. It was a ring-- not a wedding ring or an engagement ring or really anything other than a ring. It was strong and manly in its own way, a simple band with hard edges and a little seam that ran around it.

"A ring?" Dean asked. "What, like a promise ring?"

Lee shook his head. "God, I knew you were gonna fuckin' say that. It's just a reminder, okay?"

"Of a promise I made," Dean added.

"Just shut up and put it on already," Lee instructed, poorly hiding his embarrassment. He grabbed Dean's hand out of the water and started to slide the ring onto his finger. "Such a fucking asshole sometimes."

"Hey, I thought we were both assholes," Dean commented. 

Lee sighed. "Yeah. We're both assholes."

Dean lifted his hand to look at the ring, flexed his hand to get a feel for it. It felt right. Just new.

There was still something between them. A strange and unspoken tension, or energy, or feeling, or whatever you wanna call it. It should have been all out on the table by now, but without the words it still seemed... secret. Attaching adjectives to things was still a step too far, it seemed. The bar was a bar, the guys were guys. The words were too much to speak.

They stayed there a while longer. Lee's hands eventually found Dean's again, interlacing with purpose. 

The feeling of floating side by side with Lee was indescribable. The pit was closing up, but it seemed another was opening… a new one, deeper and darker than the others. 

Dean had never been afraid to die. In fact, he was looking forward to it, in a way. That was how you got out of being a hunter, after all. Dying meant that all the pain and the fear and the stress would finally stop. There wasn't really anything that life was offering Dean, so letting it end wasn't going to be a big loss.

Except… well, now, there was something on offer, wasn't there?

Life didn't have to be a slog anymore. He had a finish line and a great, big trophy to reach before he died.

And that was scarier than anything.

Eventually, wordlessly, Lee and Dean climbed out of the water. 

They walked back out the way they'd come, this time carrying their shoes with their socks stuffed down inside. They rode away on bikes (slowly, thanks to wet jeans and bare feet).

Lee pointed out the bar. "That's it," he said, nodding in its direction. Dean noted the miniature flag stuck in a flower pot outside.

They would be together again.

Until the next hunt, though, Dean had a ring to remind him.


	4. The cross he wears around his neck

"You know what we've never done?" Dean said, his voice wavering as the bed beneath him clattered about.

Sam sighed deeply. He was trying to stay focused, after all, and the stupid magic fingers were annoying enough.

It was always a gamble; sometimes indulging in Dean's nonsense was the fastest way to more nonsense. Then again, it was sometimes the only way to get him to shut up.

"What?" Sam asked, purely out of duty.

"We've literally never _once_ gone swimming in a motel pool," Dean said. "Why the hell haven't we done that, huh?"

Sam scoffed. He tilted his laptop screen down a bit specifically to look at Dean. "You're kidding me, right?" He asked, dripping with sass and sarcasm. "Because it's disgusting?"

Dean waved his hand dismissively. "Oh, like we're not up to our elbows in 'disgusting' every day."

"Yeah, but we have some control over this one," Sam explained, exasperation already working at the edges of his words. "I'm not gonna go dunk myself in a wet vat of disease to relax."

"You are such a fuckin' drama queen!" Dean laughed, and the sound jittered along with the bed's cheap motor. "C'mon, when was the last time you even went swimming?"

Sam glared at Dean, then slowly opened his laptop again and resumed his studying.

"Sammy, c'mon…" Dean teased.

"Don't call me that," Sam reminded with a grin that went beyond sarcastic and straight into hostile.

Dean frowned. 

Motels sucked. They sucked every single time. Dean did some quick math--one motel per hunt, one hunt per week, fifty-two weeks in a year, twenty-seven years alive (minus the first four)--and quickly discovered that he had been in a lot of different motels. A lot. And never _once_ had he gotten in the pool.

Maybe it was stupid. After all, it's not like he hadn't gone swimming other places. Gyms, beaches, the odd lake. It wasn't every day, but Dean reckoned he had to be fair-- it probably wasn't every day for anyone but the pros.

And yet he wanted it. Really, really bad. 

Something about the idea of being submerged in all the chlorine, those weird neon and fluorescent lights illuminating a nighttime swim… it seemed clean. The sort of clean that Dean hardly ever had.

Deep down, he knew that was pretty ignorant. There isn't anything clean about any motel in the continental United States; not in the 'close to godliness' sense, and not in the 'good clean fun' sense, either. Motels were dingy, disgusting places where the absolute pits of humanity hung about, making a really wide variety of stains and generally doing unsavory things.

And yet, the pool called his name…

The magic fingers wore out, and the mattress slowly came to a full stop. Dean could still feel the vibration deep in his bones.

He stole a glance at Sam, who seemed visibly relaxed without the constant shaking the machine had afforded the room.

Dean would hate to ruin that.

Oh wait-- no, he wouldn't.

Dean sat up, and the jittery feeling followed him like a tactile afterimage. "Sam. Hey, Sam."

Sam's shoulders tensed again. "What?"

"You didn't answer my question."

"What question?"

"About the last time you went swimming. Duh."

"Literally last month. You were there."

Dean thought a moment. "Okay, when was the last time you went swimming and you _weren't_ trying to save a kid from her… haunted doll, or whatever-the-fuck."

"Last year," Sam answered.

Dean mused on that one a little longer. "Last time you swam not on a hunt, bitch."

"College, jerk."

"Oh, my fucking--" Dean put his face in his hands. "You seriously don't wanna go swimming?"

"Yes!" Sam lowered the screen of his laptop again, this time to look Dean properly in the eye. "I seriously don't wanna go swimming, Dean! I'm trying to solve a murder."

Dean raised his hands in defense. "Oh, well, excuse _me_. Didn't realize you were tryna make quota, Officer Tightass."

Sam's eyes turned back down to the screen. He began to type rather savagely, Dean guessed specifically to dissuade him from being a pest. Ironically, it created a sound even more annoying than the magic fingers. It also made Dean's desire to be a pest that much stronger.

Dean swung his legs off the side of the mattress. He considered digging around in his pockets for more quarters, but decided his change might be better spent at the vending machines outside. 

And suddenly a new bargaining chip entered into play.

"What would it take to get you to go for one swim?" Dean asked. "I could get you a soda."

Sam smacked the enter key on his laptop so hard Dean worried he may have fractured it. Or possibly his fingers.

"Okay, first off, what is 'one swim'?" Sam asked. The exasperation was full-blown, now.

"Well, it would be like a, uh--"

"Secondly, I can buy myself soda," Sam spat. "I have money. I'm an adult."

Dean chuckled. "Yeah, no. I get that," he said. Sam could sense that he was winding up to be absolutely heinous. "See, in this scenario, I'd be using my money and my legs to walk to the vending machine and get you the soda. You're paying for the service. It's like a pizza delivery."

"From down the hall." More a statement of frustration than a question.

"Yeah," Dean said. He flashed a grin. "Far walk. Doin' you a favor."

"Dean, I swear--"

"Alright, _two_ sodas, but you're really pushing it."

"I don't have time for--"

"Two sodas and a snack!" Dean smacked his leg, mimicking the pound of an auctioneer's gavel. "Final offer."

Sam took a moment to collect himself. Deep breath in, deep breath-- "I don't _want_ to go swimming, Dean."

Dean's eyebrows knit together. "Think you're missing the point of the bribe, here," he said with a laugh. "One hour. Two sodas… _and_ a snack."

"If I could just--"

"Two sodas, a snack, _and_ \--" Dean paused for dramatic effect "--I'll totally leave you alone for the rest of the night."

Behind his brother’s eyes, Dean could see the little wheels of his mind spin uselessly against one another. On the one hand, swimming in a disgusting tub of stranger juices… on the other, a night filled with magic fingers and annoying television and loud music and general snorting and grunting from Dean, the world's loudest and most distracting person.

Sam sighed. "One hour. That's it."

Dean laughed triumphantly. "Knew I’d getcha! Did you pack your trunks?"

"No."

"Why the hell not?!" Dean asked. "You're always jumping in the water after some drowning kid."

Sam snorted. "Yeah, and I don't exactly have time for a wardrobe change before I do."

Dean opened his mouth to spit back, thought a second, closed it, opened it again. "Fair. Wear your tighties, then, I guess."

He stood up, stretched, and hobbled over to his duffel bag. The lingering tingles of the magic fingers gave him the feeling that his whole body was asleep. Somewhere, in the back of Dean’s mind, he tucked the feeling into a slot with all the other non-feeling feelings associated with motels. Snow on the TV, static on the radio, unscented cleaning supplies, stale vending machine snacks, and now full-body numbness. At last, all five senses wrapped up in the liminal blanket of motel life.

“I don’t wear tighty-whiteys,” was all Sam said.

Dean looked up and grinned snidely. “Oh, sure. My mistake.”

With just a few hap-hazard tosses, Dean managed to bury his own feet in a pile of laundry. The state of each article was unclear… clean? Worn? Bloody? Muddy? It all got thrown together in the end.

Sam typed a few more words--much softer, Dean noted--and closed his laptop. He had a habit of always fully packing the machine away before leaving it; tucking it into its bag, wrapping the cable up in a perfect little bundle, zipping up the whole package, and finally putting it into his backpack. Occasionally, he would elect to put the laptop in the safe, instead. Motel safes didn’t always have the space for that, though.

It was one of those things that Dean couldn’t rightly call his brother out on, and yet felt so desperately pulled to do so.

Dean eventually found his trunks (decidedly not of the swimming persuasion), and tucked a bit of them into the back pocket of his jeans. “Alight, I’mma get changed. Our hour starts when you hit the water, got it?”

“Got it…” Sam muttered as the zipper on his laptop case hit home.

Dean grinned and closed the bathroom door.

Motel bathrooms were also disgusting, as Dean knew full well. As hard as he tried to play it off like he didn’t care, it was always the bathrooms that really got him. He was breathing rather shallow as he struggled off his jeans and underwear. 

With his trunks on, he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror, and paused. 

He remembered a night spent in dirtier water than even the motel pool could offer. The taste of beer. A hand in his.

He twisted the ring on his right ring finger. It wasn’t like the bracelet, it didn’t have words to go with it. And it wasn’t like the watch, with a specific sort of fear clouded around it. It just felt like Pearl Jam mixtapes and stolen touches and swimming in a secret lake.

Maybe that was why swimming meant so much to him.

“Let’s go, Dean!” Sam called. “I wanna be done by eleven, okay?”

Dean shook his head to snap himself out of the memory. “Yeah, yeah, I’m comin’!”

Swimming was something normal people did, Dean thought as he and his brother walked together towards the gate to the motel pool.

Like buying a soda from a vending machine, or digging through dirty laundry, or enjoying the novelties of the magic fingers. Like bickering with your brother over something stupid. Like bad TV on a weekday night.

And it felt good as hell to be normal.

“So, I’ve been thinking about the Gilmore obit,” Sam said. He was walking awkwardly along the sidewalk in bare feet. “It almost fits, but I feel like this one might actually be a coincidence, because--”

“Sam,” Dean cut his brother off as respectfully as he could muster. “I’m begging you not to talk about work while we’re swimming.”

Sam rolled his eyes, a silent agreement.

Normal.

There was a chain link fence around the pool and patio. It had a lock on it, but it was hanging open. For a moment, the boys hesitated, wondering if the pool was somehow off-limits.

But that had never stopped them before.

The metal rattled under Dean's fingers. Like guitar strings.

The pool was a mix of pathetic and magical. 

It was small, square, and ancient. No sly curving edges, no concrete steps down into the shallows, not even anything that resembled a real seating area. Just an aluminum ladder on each side and three busted-up patio chairs near a plastic table.

But, just as Dean had imagined, the surface of the water reflected the blue neon lights, wavering from an unseen disturbance. Like the cover of a vaporwave album. Or like a magazine photoshoot. Bushes around the outside of the fence shielded the pool from the eyes of any other motel-goers (which Dean silently thanked God for). And it smelled so strongly of chlorine that Dean could picture himself with a few friends, drinking beers, pushing each other in…

Faceless friends.

“Well. At least we know it’s chlorinated enough,” Sam commented.

Dean grinned. “Hells, yeah.”

The boys stood there a while longer, staring into the water.

It was sort of hypnotizing. Little triangles of vibrant cerulean appearing and disappearing, sinking and floating like buoys. The hum of the ventilation.

“You gonna get in?” Dean asked.

Sam shifted his position uncomfortably and said nothing.

“Hey, Earth to Sammy!” Dean knocked a fist playfully on the side of his brother’s head.

Sam smacked the hand away. “Don’t be a dick.”

Dean sniggered. “Water’s not getting any wetter,” he reminded Sam. “Don’t tell me you changed your mind.”

Sam clenched and unclenched his fists. He hadn’t even taken off his t-shirt.

But, hey. Dean had gone this far to ruin Sam’s night. Who’s to stop him taking it one step further?

Dean reached over, very slowly, and gave Sam a shove.

Sam yelped in surprise, limbs waving wildly, and smashed onto the water’s surface.

He, predictably, surfaced immediately and began yelling at Dean. But Dean didn’t care one bit. He pulled his own shirt off over his head and tossed it to the side.

“Cannonball!”

"No, wait!"

But it was too late to wait. Dean sailed through the air, knees clutched to his chest, and broke the water's surface with concussive power.

Sam shielded his face from the splash, despite already having been soaked.

Dean surfaced, laughing deep and heartily.

Sam wiped a wet hand over his wet face, as if that would help. "Fuck you, Dean."

"Ah, you would've had to get in eventually!" Dean said. He was still sort of giggling. "Feels good now that you're in it, right?"

Sam glared at him. Dean thought he looked like the missing mask from the comedy-tragedy duo, so fully embodying frustration and fury that it seemed to be his only personality trait.

Then, with very little warning, Sam's hand shot out from the water and took hold of Dean's hair. Dean only had a fraction of a second to take a breath before Sam shoved his head under the water.

Dean smacked at Sam's hand and he was quickly released. He surfaced again.

The shadow of a smile was hidden in the corners of Sam's face.

Dean shook his head, feeling the heavy weight of his wet hair swing. "Oh, so that's how it's gonna be, huh?"

He lunged at Sam.

The boys wrestled a while in the water, toes scraping the sandpaper bottom, eyes stinging with chlorine. While, at first, Sam was merely trying to defend his honor, more and more laughs and whoops escaped him, until he was just as rowdy as his brother.

Most of it was pretty stupid. Grabbing each other's heads to dunk under the water, splashing water about in great, big arcs, a little light punching in the abdomen. This wasn't the time to fight for real. It was time to fight like brothers.

The sounds of splashing and laughter and calling names was the only thing ringing through the motel. Everyone in their own room with their own magic fingers rumbling away, bad soaps with a dwindling audio quality fizzling out from the TVs, even just sleeping and snoring like buzzsaws. But, if any of them had stepped out for some ice from the cooler or a breath of fresh air, they would've heard the Winchesters.

No one came to stop them, though. The chain link gate hung open, lock on the ground.

The wrestling ended the way it always does, sort of dwindling off as the two of them tired themselves. No winners were declared.

The water settled quickly, returning to its usual rhythm of disturbance from the ventilation. The same pattern of blue lights dancing across it.

Sam used both hands to pull his hair back away from his face. "So you just wanted an excuse to beat up on me, huh?"

Dean sighed happily and floated to the surface of the water. "I don't need an excuse to beat up on you, believe me," he said. The night air was freezing on his exposed skin, but the desire to float like an otter was stronger than the cold. "I don't like saying no to great opportunities, though."

"Right, right." Sam laughed. "Y'know, sometimes I feel like you never grew up."

Dean rolled his head over to look at his brother. "So what if I didn't?"

Sam opened his mouth, but paused. His relaxed expression hardened to one of confusion. "Uh…" He laughed incredulously. "Dean, are you wearing a cross?"

A hand leapt out of the water and up to Dean's chest. He held it there, over his heart, over the two amulets which rested there, considering his options. His bottom half floated downwards, and he found himself upright once again.

Crickets chirped. The ventilator hummed. In a distant room, someone was listening to classic rock on the radio.

Dean cleared his throat. "Uh, yeah."

Sam blinked. "Yeah?"

"Yeah!"

He laughed, more in disbelief than anything else. "Okay…"

"Oh, get off my dick, Sammy," Dean said, rolling his eyes. "You know I'm a jewelry man."

Sam scoffed. "Just a few weeks ago you railed me for believing in angels."

Dean stared at Sam.

Sam stared back.

A little bout of canned laughter floated over from a room with an open window.

Sensing that Sam wasn't even remotely considering letting this go, Dean sighed. "Pastor Jim gave it to me a while back."

"And you actually wear it?"

"Yeah, I wear it!" Dean snapped back. "It was a gift, I was bein' polite. God."

Sam made a face at his brother. 'Oh, sure,' it said. 'You are known for being polite.' Then, his gaze shifted again, examining the chain in closer detail.

Dean made his best effort to back away from Sam in the pool, but Sam was advancing easily.

"Hang on," Sam said, reaching out with one hand, "is that on a--"

"It's on a dog tag chain, okay?" Dean smacked Sam's hand away. "Would you just--"

"Why?" Sam was more laughing than talking now.

Dean huffed. "Well, Pastor Jim put it on this flimsy little wimp chain! It got broke on the first hunt after I got it, so I--"

"You mean _you_ broke it."

"Oh, shut up, Sam!" Dean shoved his brother away from him a short distance, barely hiding a smile. "It _got. Broke_. So I bought one of those-- y'know, one of the kitschy, gas station dog tags and just… replaced the chain."

Sam thought for a second. "What's the original say, 'I heart my dad'?"

"Alright, that's it!" 

Dean lunged at Sam again. Sam managed to dodge Dean's clumsy grab at him, flipping his brother end-over-end in the water. To his part, Dean let it happen-- he hardly flailed or protested at all.

He surfaced yet again, and Sam's interrogation was renewed as if there had been no interruption at all.

"Why would Pastor Jim give you a cross?" Sam asked as Dean shook the water from his hair once more. "He knew you weren't… I dunno. Religious."

Dean chuckled, an obvious fake. "Yeah, of course he did." He swiveled his legs again, rising to once more float on his back. "But that's pretty much the only weapon in his arsenal, if you know what I mean. Givin’ people jewelry and talking about God and angels and… saints. Or whatever."

Sam cocked his head to one side. "So, then… what did he think he was fighting?"

Dean tried to quip back, but found nothing catchy enough in his mind to dissuade Sam's curiosity. For a moment, his mind was blank, devoid of anything remotely helpful. Not even a dirty joke rose to the surface.

"Really harshing my mellow, here, Sammy," was what he said.

He kept his eyes closed, not wanting to prompt Sam into further discussion. The pool water swallowed up his ears. The world was bathed in its comforting murmur.

Dean could not see his brother, and so he had to imagine what he might be doing. Most of the usual gestures of annoyance would have been difficult to do effectively in the water--folding his arms over his chest and huffing, leaning against something, or planting himself on a nearby chair--and the thought of Sam attempting them did give Dean a little bit of joy. There was, of course, the possibility that he was staring at Dean with great pity. This tactic was typically employed when an argument took place late at night, and Dean could escape it by rolling to face the opposite direction.

God, did he ever hate the way Sam looked at him sometimes. A sort of sad, sort of pitying, sort of superior look, as if his partial Stanford education had created a rift the size of the Grand Canyon between their respective intellects. As if Sam knew enough to know Dean deserved pity, yet also knew that Dean was all too stupid to see it himself.

Overcome with curiosity, Dean cracked one eye open.

Sam was looking up.

Dean followed his gaze, looking up and up and up and--

“What are you looking at?” Dean asked.

“Stars,” Sam said simply.

Dean squinted up at the sky. Past the light pollution of this motel and the surrounding city, he couldn’t see shit.

“I can’t see shit.”

Sam shrugged. “If you look hard enough, you can see a few,” he said. “And, I mean-- the stars are there, whether or not you can see them.”

For a moment, Dean was impressed with the depth of the statement. He’d never thought of it that way before.

“Wait, was that supposed to be a crack at me for the angel stuff?” Dean demanded. He began to flail about in the water once more, working himself upright.

Sam rolled his eyes, but did not answer.

Thinking about angels twisted Dean up into knots.

It was a subject he had meditated on many a night spent in a cheap motel, or in the backseat of the Impala. According to the bible, after all, demons and angels came from the same stock. It’s like believing in the chicken, but not the egg.

Dean huffed softly to himself. “If angels exist, where the fuck are they, huh?”

Sam looked at his brother. “What?”

“That’s what I asked Pastor Jim,” Dean said. He was still squinting up at the dark sky, trying to catch a glimpse of a star. “You were off at college, and dad was… dad. I was feeling like shit, basically, and so I asked him where the angels are.”

Sam spun slowly in the water to face Dean. The water rippled under his fingertips.

“I thought angels were supposed to protect people, y’know? Good people.” Dean looked down at his hands in the water, admiring their weightlessness. “Demons, I get; the world’s a shitty fuckin’ place to be. See it every day. But I don’t feel like I’ve really seen… well, _anything_ that’s just…”

“Good?”

Dean scoffed. “Yeah.”

Sam looked down at his hands, now, trying to find a way to break the silence. “What did Pastor Jim tell you?”

Dean remembered exactly what the pastor had told him. Word for word, beat for beat. He could have filmed it himself, a perfect recreation.

_That’s what faith_ is _, Dean. It’s knowing that there’s good in the world, even if you can’t see it. It’s being the guardian angel you think the world needs. It’s being holy, even if no one is keeping count._

What Dean heard was _It’s being bigger on the inside_.

“I dunno, something about some saint or someone who’s, like…” Dean waved his hand in the air, spraying some pool water in Sam’s face. “Ah, I can’t remember. Something about someone I don’t believe in.”

Sam didn’t answer right away.

Deep down, Dean knew this was because Sam could read him like a book. The nature of his cowardly lies were printed all over his face. 

The ventilation hummed. The water burbled.

Sam could’ve said a lot. He could have demanded the truth, knowing full well that Dean was hiding it. He could’ve asked why Dean continued to wear it, appealing to Dean’s sentimental nature in the hopes of drawing out something more. He could’ve pressed Dean on why he’d waited so long to contact his brother once more, as pained as he must have been. 

But, in a way, Sam had his answer: his brother had more in him than he was willing to share, despite the shadows of these things which he proudly wore.

Many times had Sam asked after the bracelet with the skull-shaped beads, or the silver ring. Never had he gotten a truthful answer. Sam supposed that was just as well. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know the stories behind the jewelry Dean wore. It could have been damn near anything.

“Too bad,” Sam said.

“Yeah,” Dean agreed. “Too bad.”

Someone was listening to old music.

Not old music like Dean's box of tapes. Old music like it only sounded right belching out of a low-quality radio. Old like World War II, USO shows and Andrew Sisters old. 

Dean was gripping the cross between two fingers.

He hadn't realized he was doing that. He didn't tend to notice the cross at all, in fact. It was something he wore out of duty, tucked under his shirt, hidden when he saw his reflection. With so many other pieces of jewelry to occupy his fingers, he hardly ever found himself fishing for the cross 

But it felt different, now.

Maybe it was the water.

Water with a cross in it.

There was something there. Something about demons and exorcisms and baptisms and a forgiveness of sin. About holiness and God, even if he didn't exist. But especially if he did.

Usually all the talk of sin brought to mind some other memories for Dean, though they were so well-buried that he hardly noticed them before squashing them under the heel of his steel-toed boot. Even now, he couldn't bear to acknowledge the sins-that-were-not-a-sin he had committed. 

The one thing that did make it past Dean's mental goalie was the hospital.

It was a special kind of sin, and thus a special kind of guilt. The sin of living when others had not. The guilt of surviving when he should have died.

Dean looked at Sam, floating peacefully in the water beside him.

Sam forgave him for forcing him to go swimming.

Sam forgave him for not explaining when he could have.

Sam forgave him for surviving.

And, just like that, all of Dean's sins melted off into the water of the motel pool.

Cleansed by chlorine.

Baptized by his brother.


	5. The Elephant Hair Bracelet he wears on his right hand

“You’re not gonna order anything?”

Castiel looked down at his hands, folded neatly on the table before him. “I thought I was quite clear about this, Dean. Angels don’t require food to sustain their vessels.”

“Yeah, but…” Dean glanced down at his menu, then back up at Cas. “Well, it’s gonna look weird.”

“Why?”

Dean’s shoulders slumped downward. He fell back against the booth, which hissed gently and steadily under his weight.

Cas just squinted at him.

Outside the diner, a large truck flew down the highway. For a moment, Dean imagined that he was driving it, silly as the dream might have been. But that sort of loneliness he could have taken, he thought. Just him and the open road. And music. And deer in the night.

Another truck. That long, low rush of the wind in its wake. Crickets and cicadas right behind it.

This was hard.

This particular type of loneliness. It wasn't rough-and-tumble like a truck driver in the night. It was the yellow-green fluorescents of a truck-stop diner, the strange late-night radio stations playing on low-quality speakers, the smell of industrial cleaner and gas.

It was hard for lots of reasons.

It was hard because he missed Sam, and because he didn’t entirely understand his brother’s decision to leave him alone. Of course he had  _ wanted _ Sam to take a break, but that wasn’t the point. There should have been a fight, for God’s sake. Some glimmer of the old Sam.

It was hard because of the timer ticking down. Bad things were barreling towards him at a rate Dean couldn’t measure, and that sure kept him looking over his shoulder. He didn’t exactly have verse memorized, after all. He wasn’t sure he’d recognize an omen of doom if it bit him in the ass.

It was hard because this diner smelled a little  _ too _ much like gasoline from the pumps outside, and it was making his stomach twist up in knots.

It was hard because Cas couldn’t fucking act human if his angelic life depended upon it.

Just generally, shit was just giving him an ulcer, and that was the very last thing Dean needed right now. He didn’t have time to stop for some pepto, and he didn’t have time for something healthier than yet another greasy cheeseburger. 

Not that he would’ve picked something else. Here for a good time, not a long time. Right?

“Ah,” Cas said. He nodded once, knowingly. “You’re looking for normalcy. My not eating is disrupting that.”

Dean scoffed. “I-I’m not-- it’s just because--" He stopped, clenched and unclenched a fist. "It's for  _ other _ people. Like the waitress.”

Cas squinted.

He was always kind of squinting, Dean thought. Though it seemed that, occasionally, his eyes would twitch another increment further shut. It was the only visible sign of emotion the guy had, and so Dean gave him a pass. Like, at least he could do this  _ one _ thing.

“I will order a coffee,” Cas said.

Dean smirked. “There ya go.”

The angel sort of shifted his position, almost puffing out his chest a little. Dean wanted to interpret it as pride, though he suspected assigning something so human to an angel was a bad move. Like assuming those cobras were just hugging all those goats a little too tight.

Dean folded his menu and put it down on the table in front of him, then began to survey the restaurant for their waitress.

Cas watched him carefully. To his credit, he was trying to learn. He seemed to be taking little mental notes on everything Dean did, which was equal parts satisfying and frustrating to Dean.

It was nice that he came to the master for help in ordering food at a diner. But, God. Did he have to watch  _ that _ closely while he did it?

Eventually, their waitress locked eyes with Dean, and gave an easy, customer-service smile. Cas noted silently that staring at girls got you food faster.

“What can I get you boys?” the waitress--Cathy, her name tag said--asked sweetly.

This was one of Dean’s pet peeves (being called ‘boy’), but he smiled through it. “Uh, could we get two coffees, a cheeseburger, and a side of fries?”

“Sure thing,” Cathy said, scribbling in her notepad.

“I would also like a coffee,” Cas said.

Cathy paused her note-taking. “Um… three coffees, then?”

Dean set his jaw. “No, no. Sorry about my buddy, here, he’s-- he’s a little, uh…” Dean looked over at Cas, trying to think of an adequate excuse to describe his behavior. “Just two coffees. Thanks.”

“You got it.” Cathy disappeared while trying to suppress a chuckle.

Dean let out a sigh. “Well, great. Now she probably thinks you’re high.”

“I’m shorter than you,” Cas quipped, though Dean had no reason to believe it was intentional.

“Hilarious.”

The diner was playing '99 Luftballoons' in the original German. As if the combination of fried food and angels in a 24-hour truck stop wasn't Vonnegut enough already, we had to kick it up a notch with foreign pop about… oh, whatever it was about. The Cold War, probably. Or was that Russia?

Normally, Dean would go to diners with his brother. They didn't have these kinds of awkward silences because they could do business in diners, provided they kept talk purely theoretical.  _ Theoretically _ how would you kill a werewolf?  _ Theoretically _ what did angel hierarchy look like?  _ Theoretically _ who would make a good vessel for Lucifer?

But it had taken a lot to get Cas to come out to the diner with him. A lot of clever and embarrassing lies about needing protection, when he was really just lonely.

Dean thought for a second that Cas probably knew all of that, and was playing along.

Or maybe he didn't.

Weren't angels supposed to be all-knowing or something? Could you really smooth-talk an angel, or would they see through any lie?

Was Cas reading his thoughts right now?

Dean looked across the table at the strange little man. His expression had not changed, but he seemed to be people-watching now; a concept which took on a different meaning when it was an angel doing the watching. It was less like a person participating in society and more like a scientist observing lab rats.

Out of fear that he was being heard, Dean latched onto the song and tried to remember the English lyrics. That should fill up his brain with enough garbage to chase Cas off.

As soon as he had the idea, the song ended.

Then, like some great cosmic joke, the last power chord gave way to a darkened strumming on acoustic guitar.

_ Dear God _

_ Hope you got the letter and _

_ I pray _

_ You can make it better down _

_ Here _

Even Castiel seemed to sense the dark humor of this song, playing for these two people, in this place, at this time. It wasn't with a smirk or a comment… just a particular tilt of the head and crinkle around the eyes.

Maybe Dean understood him more than he gave himself credit for.

It was hard for Dean not to think in terms of symmetry. That was the major stumbling block, he thought. Sam had a demon, and so Dean had an angel. Each seemed to play something of the same role in their respective lives, and yet…

Well, Sam's was human enough to fuck. Apparently. And Dean's was hardly more than a cardboard cutout of a person.

It seemed unfair.

Not that Dean was craving intimacy with the dirty man in the trenchcoat. But… well, God. Would it kill him to hold a conversation sometime? A little smalltalk? Something even remotely human?

Castiel cleared his throat. "I've noticed that you wear a lot of… accessories."

Dean's brows furrowed. It was hard not to feel exposed around a possibly-mind-reading angel.

"Uh…" Dean pulled his hands back and tucked them under the table. "Yeah, and?"

"The American male doesn't appear to value accessories," Castiel noted. "Unless they are homosexual."

Dean tried not to laugh. "That's a lot of assumptions, there, Cas."

Cas squinted. "You're not American?"

A chuckle escaped Dean. "No, I'm-- that's not the point."

"I'm simply making an observation," Cas said. Dean wanted to assign defensiveness to this statement, though that seemed inappropriate. "Most American males do not wear jewelry. But you do. I noticed."

"Well, good for you," Dean muttered.

Wanting to escape this conversation before it got any more bizarre, Dean began to survey the diner for the waitress again.

_ Dear God _

_ I don't know if you noticed but _

_ Your name _

_ Is on a lot of quotes in this _

_ Book _

_ Us crazy humans wrote it _

_ You should take a look _

"Dean."

"What?"

"Why do you wear so much jewelry?" Cas asked.

Dean heaved a great sigh. "Because. Some people gave me some jewelry, and I wear it."

"Who--"

"End of conversation."

Castiel closed his mouth. He didn't seem so much disappointed as distant.

Who knows? He probably didn't care. He probably knew exactly where it all came from, down to the person who screwed his watch together on the assembly line, and was just trying to make conversation. To be normal. For Dean's sake.

It was  _ annoying _ . Like Cas pitied him or something.

Dean didn't recognize the hypocrisy of his own feelings.

"Order up!" Cathy announced, swooping in with a small tray of food and a pot of coffee.

Dean straightened up, and Cas mimicked his body language.

Cathy set two mugs down on the table and filled each one with hot coffee. She added the plate of fries, the cheeseburger, and a dish of creamer in those little plastic tubs.

"Alright. You boys need anything else?" she asked sweetly.

Dean shook his head. "Nah, we're--"

"Oh!" Cathy interrupted. She held up her left hand and pointed to a black bracelet around her wrist. "Look at that! We match!"

Dean looked at his own wrist.

A thin bracelet, made of a bundle of thick fibers and tied in two places. It was the most non-statement piece he wore, one guaranteed not to be noticed.

Cathy wore a very similar piece, though hers seemed to have more knots and was additionally adorned with some golden bands near the knots.

Dean forced a chuckle, but said nothing.

Cathy giggled quite genuinely. "Neat! You two enjoy your meal."

And she sauntered off, not a care in the world.

Dean wished desperately that Sam was here. The combination of 'order up', 'we match', and 'neat' was enough comedic material to last them a good twenty minutes. Even if most of it would be in the form of Sam teasing his brother mercilessly (he rarely got the chance, the poor thing), Dean would prefer it over the stone-cold stare of an angel.

"Here," Dean said, pushing the plate of fries towards Cas. "Have a fry."

Cas looked at the plate quizzically. He made no motion to take a fry.

Dean rescinded the plate. "Fine. Drink some coffee, then."

Castiel did as instructed, lifting the boiling-hot black coffee to his lips and taking a sip.

It all happened before Dean could react, and so he was left to stare as Cas likely gave his vessel severe burns all the way down his throat.

Dean could only put a hand over his mouth and look on in abject horror.

"Hm." Cas looked down into the cup. "I don't see how this is meant to be pleasurable."

Dean snorted. "Well, you may wanna consider cream and sugar," he said, again pushing the dish of creamer towards Cas. "But it might also help to let it cool before you toss it back like that."

Cas seemed frozen, the mug held awkwardly in his hands. He somehow held it in a way that no one had ever held a mug. "You told me to drink it."

"Yeah." Dean decided to stop waiting around for Cas to dress his own coffee, and plucked the mug from his hands. "Well, if I knew you were gonna do  _ that _ , I wouldn't have told you to."

Dean grabbed the sugar cellar and his spoon, adding two… no, three spoonfuls. Castiel probably had a sweet tooth. He just didn't know it yet.

"How was I supposed to know what to do?" Cas asked.

Dean grabbed two of the creamers from the dish. "Because, Cas, everyone drinks coffee."

"Angels--"

"Angels don't drink coffee," Dean finished for him. "Yeah, yeah. I know. But I thought you, like… watched humans do stuff."

Dean tore the top off one creamer and poured it into Cas' coffee.

Cas made an odd little grumble. "I think what angels do is more akin to reading a history textbook than it is to sitting in a place like this and… watching."

Dean's spoon clinked against Cas' mug.

"How's that possible?" Dean asked. "I thought you… y'know, looked off the side of your cloud or whatever and saw us doing stuff."

Cas furrowed his brows. "What cloud?"

"Never mind," Dean said, waving his hand. "Just-- I dunno. Heaven looks different on Earth, I guess."

Castiel considered that assessment. What he thought of it was relatively unclear, of course-- but he clearly seemed to be turning the thought over in his mind.

Dean pushed the now-drinkable coffee across the table to his companion. Castiel took it in both hands and held it just an inch off the table. He stared down at it, delicately and almost lovingly, like it was a chick or a baby rabbit.

"From Heaven," he said, "Earth is one. We can't see the difference from person to person. It's… fuzzy. We can see groups. Trends. Widely-held beliefs and overall routines."

Dean mindlessly twirled a French fry between his fingers.

"Things like the taste of coffee, the words of a book, the color of a scarf… it all gets lost in the noise." Castiel wrapped his hands around the mug and looked out the window. "You need to be on Earth to see those things, Dean. You'd never see it from Heaven."

Dean didn't know what to say. He took a bite of a French fry.

"Once you're here, of course, the noise is overwhelming," Cas continued. "I can finally see everything, but it's usually too much. I have to focus myself here, or I'll be watching a man get dressed on the other side of the world. I'll miss things.

"Jimmy is very helpful in that regard." Cas looked at Dean, suddenly very business-like. "He is good at staying grounded. I try to use his attention to guide mine."

Dean nodded slowly. "Huh…"

"The Earth is its own creature…" Cas said. He stared out at the darkened highway, waiting for a car to pass. "And each human is only a… a red blood cell in the system. When only one is hurting, it's hard to see. But, when a whole organ fails, we will feel it."

Dean nodded slowly. "So… an organ would be, like, a country?"

"No," Cas said quickly. "National boundaries are largely arbitrary. The relationships amongst humans are much more complex than your governing documents can account for."

"Oh!" Dean swallowed his mouthful of burger hard. "Like a karass!"

Cas stared at Dean. "I'm afraid I'm not familiar with that word."

Dean chuckled. "It's from a book. It's a--" He paused, trying to dredge up memories of a book he hadn't read since high school. "It's a group of people that just… I dunno. Find each other, I guess."

"Hm."

Sensing that the concept was lost on Case, Dean tried to amend his definition. "Like, uh…" He tapped the side of his mug. "Well, I guess we would be in the same karass. You pulled me out of Hell and now you're… well, you're hanging around and stuff. It makes us connected. Even though we're different."

Cas didn't say anything. He looked at Dean with what could almost be called sadness, though that was probably a bridge too far for an angel.

"Ah, nevermind," Dean said. "It's… I'm sure angels do it differently."

Dean returned to his food.

The French fries were a little limper than he would have liked, the burger a little more well-done, but food was food. He was hungry.

The burger was more than half gone when Cas attempted another taste of his coffee.

"Hm." Cas looked down at the liquid in his mug. "This is better."

Dean chuckled dryly.

"Dean."

"Oh, God…" Dean put his burger back down on the plate. "What?"

"When did you kill an elephant?"

Dean was thankful he didn't have a mouthful of burger, because he probably would have choked. "Excuse me?"

"An elephant," Cas repeated. "Your bracelet. It's for killing an elephant. When did you kill an elephant?"

Dean looked down at his bracelet.

Cas, to his credit, sensed that Dean was a step or two behind him.

"It's called an elephant-hair bracelet," Cas explained. "The waitress bought one on a vacation to Kenya. She was told that she must wear it on her left wrist, because wearing it on the right signifies having killed the elephant yourself."

Dean cleared his throat.

"You wear yours on your right."

"Yeah, I got it, Cas," Dean spat. "It's-- I stole this from an Aeropostale when I was fourteen, okay? I didn't kill an elephant. Jesus."

Cas squinted at Dean.

"It's a clothing store."

"Why would you steal a bracelet?" Cas asked. "You already have one."

"Because I was a fucked-up kid who did stupid stuff a lot," Dean said. He took a rather aggressive bite of his burger. "I've done way worse stuff than steal from a chain store. Believe me."

"Yes, but--"

"Cas!" Dean slammed his fist down on the table with not quite enough force to rattle the dishes, but definitely enough to halt the angel's thought process. "Look. You don't know jack shit about humans, so let me give you the crash course: sometimes people do stupid shit for no reason other than they damn well felt like it. Most human thing there is."

This seemed to reach Castiel, at last.

He wasn't an idiot, after all. Anger, fear, frustration, grief-- those were universal. They weren't the fuzzy details of day-to-day life. They could be seen from Heaven, surely. From space. From universes away.

And Dean was grieving. He was grieving the permanent repercussions of temporary stupidity, as he nearly always was.

Dean got himself killed because he wasn't driving defensively.

John got himself killed because he couldn't let Dean die.

Sam got himself killed because Dean couldn't bear to kill him.

Dean got himself killed because he couldn't let Sam die.

Sam quit because he couldn't watch Dean die.

Round and round it went, always a foolish and self-sacrificing Winchester in line to bear the load. Always a ticking timer. Always another threat. Always, always, always.

Self-righteous suicide after self-righteous suicide.

And now… well, it should have been comforting. An angel on his shoulder, a savior waiting to bail him out when things got sticky. A sign that maybe, just maybe, the world wasn't all evil. Not inherently, anyway. There was a yin to the demon's yang. Or the other way around. Dean didn't know.

But, God. It all just felt so much further apart, now.

It wasn't people on the side of the angels or the demons. It was people… and angels and demons. 

Three sides.

"I want to understand," Cas said.

Dean looked up.

Castiel was not squinting. He did not have his head cocked to one side, did not appear at all hunched or mannequin-like. In fact, he looked almost human.

"Understand… what?"

Castiel's gaze wandered out to look at the diner crowds. "This. Humans. Earth. I want to understand it."

Dean scoffed and picked up his burger. "You and me both, buddy."

"But you do understand," Cas said. "You know things about… coffee."

Dean laughed.

The idea that coffee was somehow integral to personhood… and the thought that maybe that wasn't all that far from the truth.

"I do a fantastic impression of a person. But, trust me, being a hunter isn't even close to being a person," Dean said, almost cavalierly. Like it wasn't the saddest thing in the world. "If I quit today, I still wouldn't be a person. I'd be an ex-hunter."

Cas said nothing. He didn't squint or tilt his head. Just looked at Dean, focused and soft.

"I mean… I've been to Hell," Dean said with a dry laugh. "That doesn't just go away. You don't get over that."

Castiel looked down at his hands. "You could say the same thing about being an angel."

Dean froze.

Cas just kept looking at his hands. But not  _ his _ hands, someone else's hands. Some person, who was still in there, still alive and wondering when this would end. If it would end.

Someone more human than either of the humans at the table in the diner.

"Your bracelet," Cas said. "It has two knots."

Dean tried not to recoil from Castiel.

"One knot represents Earth. Your worldly ancestors and possessions," Castiel explained. He reached across the table and touched one knot of the bracelet with the very top of his pointer finger. "The other is nature. The forces and spirits that guide you, and connect you to the higher world."

Dean chewed at the inside of his cheek.

"Or… something like that," Cas said. He relaxed back into the booth. "Cathy doesn't remember all that well. Her vacation was two years ago."

Dean chuckled. A real chuckle at last, if understated.

This, Dean did know: to put on the bracelet, you had to slide the knots back and forth. Bringing them together, and then separating them. Fooling with the relationship between people and spirits.

The diner had picked a new ironic song to blast over the poor-quality speakers:

_ Bye, bye Miss American Pie _

_ Drove a Chevy to the levee _

_ but the levee was dry. _

_ Them good ol' boys _

_ Were drinkin' whiskey and rye _

_ Singin' "this'll be the day that I die _

_ "This'll be the day that I die… _

It was all a little too on-the-nose for Dean. Utterly literary in its ham-fisted symbolism. Could you even call it symbolism at that point?

Maybe the elephant didn't have to be an elephant.

Maybe it could be anything.

Maybe it could be a brother.

Maybe it could be yourself.

Dean had memories, after all, of driving his Chevy to a levee. Drinking whiskey and rye. Singing, absolutely howling, behind the wheel with his brother. Knowing he would die. Singing anyway. Singing  _ because _ .

The bracelet had never been his favorite. It didn't mean something the way everything else did. Everything else had a story. A feeling. A phrase. A promise. 

But, after he'd been pulled out of Hell… it had been different.

It had smelled like fire and brimstone.

It had smelled like the elephant Dean had killed. The elephant whose death had brought the knots of Heaven and Earth together.

Dean sighed.

He popped the rest of his burger in his mouth, chewed, and swallowed.

"Y'know what, Cas?" Dean said, wiping his hands on his jeans. "You'll figure it out. You'll be a real boy, someday."

Cas squinted and nodded ever so slightly. "Like Pinocchio," he muttered, entirely serious.

Dean laughed. "Yeah, man. Like Pinocchio."

Castiel kept nodding. He didn't show it, but he liked the idea. Dean could feel it.

"Dean."

"What?"

"You will, too."

That hit Dean like a ton of bricks. His heart clenched, and his stomach flipped.

_ I am bigger on the inside _ , he thought.  _ I am bigger on the inside. And he sees it. _

Missouri saw it.

Sam saw it.

Lee saw it.

Even Pastor Jim saw it.

And now Castiel.

They saw Dean's size. They saw the way he clumsily felt his way through life, always too big to fit in the little places he wanted to be.

Too big to ride bikes with friends.

Too big to enjoy a birthday.

Too big to know when he was in love.

Too big to admit he needed forgiveness.

Too big to admit he needed his brother.

_ Too big. _

_ Too big. _

_ Getting bigger all the time. _

"Maybe," Dean said. "Maybe."

He pulled his wallet out of his back pocket and carefully counted out money and a tip. He folded the bills and tucked them under the edge of his plate.

"C'mon, Cas. Let's head out."


End file.
